Holistic and/or non-western health practices have become widely used alternatives to conventional health/medical methodology. Many of the holistic/non-western practices utilize natural organic medicines and/or ancient techniques such as acupuncture, acupressure and magnetic therapy. Although the actual medical benefit(s) of acupuncture, acupressure or magnetic therapy have not been proven by western scientists/doctors, many people claim significant improvement in a medical condition as a result of these methods. Whether the improvement is actual or psychological does not matter to the proponents as long as they experience the benefits. As a result, many westerners are willing to try one or more of these methods, especially when other conventional methods have not been successful.
As its name implies, acupuncture consists of inserting a multiplicity of small, thin needles into a person's skin at certain locations on the body. There are more than one thousand pre-mapped locations on the human body and the locations are chosen based on whatever ailment or condition a person is experiencing. By inserting the needles, a person's chi, or life-force, can be manipulated.
Acupressure is based on the same principle of acupuncture but is non-invasive. Instead of inserting needles, a person will have pressure applied at certain locations on their skin/body. A significant benefit to the practice of acupressure and other similar pressure-applied therapies, is a device that can be quickly and easily attached or removed from a person's skin. By utilizing a multiplicity of these devices, the time required for an acupressure session can be greatly reduced. Also, these devices are cleaner and allow greater control over the amount of pressure that is applied.
Magnetic therapy is an alternative medicine practice involving the use of static magnetic fields. Practitioners claim that subjecting certain parts of the body to magnetostatic fields produced by permanent magnets has beneficial health effects. These benefits may be specific, as in the case of wound healing, or more general, as for increased energy and vitality. An improvement would be to include magnetic therapy to the acupressure technique. If there was a device available that could provide both the benefits of pressure along with magnetism the use of such a device could potentially help many people.
A search of the prior art did not disclose literature or patents that read directly on the claims of the instant invention. However, the following U.S. patents are considered related.
PATENT NO.INVENTORISSUED3,577,583Amann4 May 19716,656,199LaFontaine2 Dec. 2003
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,577,583 discloses a clamp for releasably holding sheet material. The clamp includes a rigid base of nonmagnetic material and an elongated strip of flexible material. The base carries a permanent magnet at one end, and the elongated strip is attached to the other end of the base and carries a second permanent magnet overlying the permanent magnet in the base.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,656,199 discloses a magnetic clamp assembly for an elongated flexible medical device. The clamp assembly includes magnetic clamp members operably coupled to clamp a portion of the flexible medical device to secure the medical device during treatment.
For background purposes and as indicative of the art to which the invention relates, reference may be made to the following remaining patents found in the search.
PATENT NO.INVENTORISSUED3,514,731Drake26 May 19703,582,609Morley1 Jun. 19714,013,932Aggarwal22 Mar. 19775,465,500Nammoto4 Nov. 19955,609,317Glynn et al11 Mar. 19976,283,766Donnelly et al4 Sept. 20016,765,465Dunning et al20 Jul. 2004